


Oathbreaker, Oathkeeper

by joely_jo



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ADWD spoilers, Angst, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joely_jo/pseuds/joely_jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of terrible choices and growing realisations, where roles are swapped and decisions made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oathbreaker, Oathkeeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).



> My first attempt writing Jaime/Brienne. Hopefully it's in character!

_‘A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honour. Yet soon or late in every man's life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.’_ – George R. R. Martin

 

“Hang him.” 

Jaime felt rough hands grab him by the arms and drag him into the centre of the circle of outlaws. “No!” he cried out. He glanced down at his sword lying on the ground – the outlaws had made him throw it down. It was well out of reach, though, and they were surrounded. 

At his shout, the outlaws looked to their leader, but there was no mercy to be found in the hooded woman’s red eyes. 

“Hang him,” she repeated, and her voice might as well have been a knife to Jaime’s own throat. He needed no interpreter to understand her now. 

The young Northman Jaime recognised from Ned Stark’s household at King’s Landing leaned in to listen to her. Silence grew, and in it he could hear the rattling and sputtering of the hooded woman’s breathing as she spoke, like the final rales from a chest filled with water or blood. Jaime had heard the sound before from dead men on the battlefield, and from his mother just before she slipped away, but this was worse by far. He thought of the Catelyn Stark he had known before and actually shivered. “You have kept your oath,” said the Northman to Brienne, “but you will watch him swing.” 

At those words, his eyes shifted to Brienne, standing pale as milkglass beside the copse of birch trees, two men on either side of her. One, a big man wearing a soiled yellow cloak, was holding her in an iron grip. She met his gaze and he could see the apology in her ridiculous eyes. Her anguish was plain to see and he felt his anger at her for bringing him here melting away. _She had no choice_ , he told himself, _she had no choice._

“Please… My lady, I beg you.” Brienne’s voice was tiny, a shadow, and Jaime found quite unexpectedly that he couldn’t look at her. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like guilt he was feeling. “Spare his life.”

Stoneheart’s red eyes fixed on her, as if considering her words. 

Brienne shifted, trying to loosen the hold the two men had on her, and for a moment Jaime wondered if she was going to go for her sword, but then he realised that the blade was not in its scabbard. “Stand still,” ordered the man with the yellow cloak who held her. He drew his dagger and pressed it to her neck. The blade nicked into her flesh and a thin line of blood welled up and dribbled along the dagger. She did not even flinch. Instead, her chin lifted and her jaw clenched. 

“No…” Jaime was surprised to hear himself saying. “Do not harm her.” 

Lady Stoneheart drew in another rattling breath and hissed out a choking sentence. The Northman said, “M’lady wants to know why you care about this woman…” He turned to Brienne. “And why do you care about this false knight?” 

Jaime frowned. Why _did_ he care about her? He couldn’t find the words.

Brienne answered easily, without a pause, “He is my friend.” 

“Your friend?” scoffed the man in the yellow cloak. “You make friends with some strange folk, wench.” 

Jaime winced at the word he had cruelly used so often himself. His lip curled and the urge to smash the yellow-cloaked man’s face in, just like he had smashed in Red Ronnet’s smirk, almost overcame him. But he knew what would happen if he did. He glanced again at Brienne and drew in a steadying breath. _Think of all the deals you’ve struck these last few moons_ , he told himself. _Think of Edmure Tully. Think of Tytos Blackwood and Jonos Bracken. Think._ There was only one thing he was interested in bartering though, and it surprised him to realise that it wasn’t his own life. “Let her go and I will do whatever you bid me do. I swear it.”

“You swear it?” said the man in the yellow cloak. “You are the Kingslayer. Your oaths mean nothing.” 

Jaime ignored him. “I swear it,” he repeated. “I swear it on…” He fumbled for something meaningful, something that would make them believe his word, but someone finished his sentence for him. 

From behind Stoneheart, one of the Brotherhood called out, “Swear it on your sister’s life.” 

There was silence, and then another exchange between Stoneheart and the Northman. Jaime watched them and kept perfectly still. “An oath on your sister’s life,” said the Northman. “That pleases m’lady. You say that you gave this sword to this woman and sent her on a quest to recover Sansa Stark?” He angled his head towards Brienne. “And you called the sword Oathkeeper? Well, mayhaps it is time for you to swear an oath to Lady Stoneheart, Kingslayer. Mayhaps it is time for you to see what it is like to lose someone you love.” 

If it was possible, the ruin that had once been Catelyn Stark smiled. Her lips were fat white worms, swollen and cracked. She said something else to the Northman and her smile widened. “Kill the Queen,” he said to Jaime. 

_Kill the Queen._

In that moment, everything stopped. The trees that had been shifting gently in the breeze stopped moving, the river seemed to pause, and Jaime’s heart froze.

The man in the yellow cloak laughed for Stoneheart then, a cold, mirthless sound, and added, “Oh yes, that pleases m’lady well.” He lowered the dagger he held at Brienne’s throat but still he held her tight. 

Her eyes found his again. 

_Kill the Queen._

_Cersei._

The Northman continued, “But no freedom for the woman yet. First you must bring back the head of the Queen. Only then will m’lady consider that you have kept your oath. Only then will she release the Maid of Tarth.” 

A thousand images flooded in Jaime’s mind as he thought of his sister: he thought of her eyes, sparkling with desire, her hair a golden halo on a pale pillow, but most of all he thought of her face, her head, and then imagined those eyes dead and unseeing, her beautiful hair matted with blood, her mouth twisted in a gruesome downwards smile. He could not… he would not… Yet even then, the bitter voice of doubt that had chanted to him since Tyrion’s escape struck up once more, _she’s been fucking Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know…_

“And what if I refuse?”

Lady Stoneheart raised one mealy hand to her throat and mimed a strangling gesture, then pointed with the other to the corpses hanging from the trees behind Jaime. The man in the yellow cloak raised his dagger to Brienne’s neck again and his meaning was clear. If Jaime did not do as he was bid, Brienne would pay the price of his failure. 

He wanted to slam his body into the man with the yellow cloak, grab her and run, but even he could see that such a thing would be folly. They were two, surrounded by more than a dozen, and they had taken his sword. When he still had his right hand, it might have been an option. He could have fought his way past a dozen lesser men then. Now, though… now there was no chance. His eyes shifted desperately over the human cage he was in. All the faces were closed against him. _Like wolves circling a wounded beast_ , he thought. There was no way out.

He drew in a breath, braced himself. “I’ll do it,” he said, and as the words came out, he felt a cold gust of wind blow through the clearing. 

***

The following morning, they dragged her out of the cave to watch Jaime’s leaving. It was the man with the yellow cloak who kicked her from her slumber and hauled her to her feet, binding her hands with hempen rope and shoving a foul-tasting rag into her mouth. The dank darkness of the cave had made her clothing damp and her bones colder than stone. There were fires lit for the Brotherhood, but Brienne was not permitted to sit by them. Instead, she had been kept behind a makeshift stockade fashioned from branches of hazel wood and then lashed to the wall. Jaime had been taken elsewhere, and she had not seen where. Having spent the night cramped and cold in such a confined space, it took her body a few strides to remember the art of motion. The yellow-cloaked man (whose name, she had learned, was Lem) did not care much for her clumsiness, though, and pushed her out into the blinding dawn with a boot to the backside. 

Outside, Jaime was already mounted up, with a dark cloak draped about his shoulders and the raised hood shadowing his head and face. 

At first, she dared not look at him, the guilt at having brought him here in the first place pricking at her. But before he put his heels into his horse, she could not help but glance up at him. His eyes met hers for the briefest of moments, and then he was gone. 

Brienne felt the strangest sensation wash over her as she stood there watching him ride away, listening to the sounds of hoof beats disappear into silence. It felt for a moment like she was being compelled by some inexorable force to follow him, like something in her chest was connected to him and as he rode away, it stretched tauter and tauter and threatened to snap. 

Lem snatched up the rope that was around her waist and tugged her back towards the entrance to the cave, chuckling malignantly under his breath. “What are you laughing for?” questioned Brienne. She was tired beyond all belief of these outlaws. They had a queer sense of honour, she had realised soon after they had imprisoned her, but then, so apparently did she. If she ever saw Jaime again, she imagined that he would not be like to forgive her. 

“I think you like him,” said Lem as he gave her a shove back into her stockade. 

Brienne clenched her jaw and ignored him. 

“Which will make it all the harder when he does not return and you have to swing because of him.” Lem stood on the other side of the lashed hazel frame that acted as the bars to her cage, a mocking smile rippling across his lips. She lifted her chin defiantly. “You think you bought his freedom, don’t you? Well think again. We will send men on his trail this very night. If he fails in his task, he will soon have an arrow through his heart. But we thought it best not to tell him that.” 

His laugh was ugly. “Leave her be,” said another voice from the shadows. Lem turned around as the Northman came towards him. 

“If she truly is sleeping with the lions, she ought to know that she’s like to end up being eaten,” said Lem. “Or hung.” But as he spoke he stepped back a pace, then turned and walked away. The Northman remained. 

“Are you?” he asked after a moment. 

“Am I…?”

“Sleeping with the lions?”

“No,” she replied. “I am not. Have you really sent men after him to kill him if he does not keep his oath?”

His answer was simple and uncompromising. “Yes.” 

“I told you. Jaime is not the man he was.” She had tried to explain to them about Oathkeeper and Sansa Stark and Jaime and the bear, but none of her words had seemed to make a difference. 

The Northman fixed her with an emotionless stare. “You had best hope that you are right,” he replied after a beat. “Me, I can’t see the Kingslayer doing anything that wasn’t in service of himself.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving Brienne alone again. An echo of water dripped from a stalactite, but other than that, all she could hear was her own breathing, ridiculously loud in the quiet of the cave. She sank slowly to the hard, damp floor. _Jaime will keep his word_ , she thought, but even as she thought it, doubt niggled at her. It was Cersei he was charged with killing. Had they chosen any other person, it would have been nothing to Jaime, but his sister, his lover, as she had heard said, was another matter. 

She wondered where Ser Hyle and Pod had got to. The Brotherhood had released them when she had brought Jaime back and, with some reluctance, they had followed her instruction to go. Mayhaps they would run to the nearest town and fetch help. 

They were miles from anywhere, though. And if they had any sense they would flee and never look back. She could do nothing but sit and wait for Jaime, and wonder if he would keep his word.

***

They had sent him off at dawn on a bay horse with an awkward gait. They had kept his longsword and given him nothing but a dagger and a dark wool cloak to conceal his identity. “You won’t be needing this,” the yellow-cloaked man had said, as he’d thrown Jaime’s sword into the river. He’d swallowed the retort that had sprung to mind – they had him by his balls. They had given him enough basic rations to keep him fed until he got to his destination and a blanket to protect him from exposure, but he was not to stop in inns or taverns, nor beg lodgings from any soul. Lady Stoneheart had given him two moons to return, and that meant he must needs ride at a strong pace. King’s Landing was three weeks’ ride away if the weather held, longer if not. 

Brienne had been brought out, bound and gagged, before he had been sent off, a cruel reminder of the potential cost of failure. He had tried to catch her eye, but she had been somewhere else. _Gone away inside_ , he thought, and that had made him angry all over again. 

About an hour after dawn, it started to rain, a slow, steady rain that quickly soaked through the thin wool of his cloak. He had not come dressed for travel, and it wasn’t long before he was shivering in his sodden garb. But there was little he could do about it. He dared not stop for fear that he would lose time, and so on he rode, even as the wind picked up and the rain grew more insistent. 

Along the road he saw more corpses hanging from the trees, most half-rotten, others barely more than skeletons. But then, as he rounded a corner, he saw two fresh ones swinging from the sagging limb of a chestnut tree. Even in the rain, the crows were at them, noisily squabbling over the eyes and the mouths. As he rode up, they took wing and disappeared, cawing. The two corpses were knights in plate and mail, and they bore the twin towers of Frey upon their surcoats. _The outlaws have been busy here too, and not too long ago._

He remembered Edwyn Frey’s anger over the Hangwoman’s murdering of his father Ryman and wondered who these latest casualties were. _Lord Walder will find himself down to his last dozen heirs if he isn’t careful,_ he thought. 

He kept the horse loping onwards through the rain. 

Onwards.

Onwards. 

As he rode, he planned out the act in his head. There would be guards on Cersei’s chamber doors, of that he was sure, but there would be no need for him to deceive them. They would see him for who he was and he would walk within unchallenged. _Look the innocent man, and no soul will think to challenge you. No-one will believe you come to do evil._

The Kingslayer. They had called him that for half his life, and now here he was planning the murder of the Queen, his beloved sister. He wondered what they would call him after this. Queenslayer? Kinslayer? Accursed man? It mattered not, truly. Jaime did not intend to wait around to find out. This time there would be no seating himself on the Iron Throne as he had done when he had slain Aerys, waiting for whichever man it was to discover his crime. When this task was done, he would have to take his gruesome trophy with him and flee, or Brienne would be hanged. He had endured the insults and the taunts and derision that had come after Aerys, but he could not endure that. No…

The horse kept on and Jaime kept thinking. 

He would drug the guards, he decided, with wine tainted with sweetsleep. An alchemist stocking such a thing would be easy to find in one of the villages along the Kingsroad and the drink would send the guards into a deep sleep so that when they woke, they would remember naught of the previous night and day. In such a state, he could daub them in blood and leave his dagger in their hands, meaning that no-one would think to look further than them when searching for his sister’s killer. It would require perfect execution, but Jaime knew that he could do it. 

And that was what truly scared him. He could kill his own sister, the one he had come into the world with, with all the planning and preparation of a cold-blooded assassin.

He rode all day and well into the night, before exhaustion finally forced him to pull up and take some rest. The rain had cleared away as the sky had darkened, and now the moon was abed with nothing more than pale, wispy clouds. He tied his horse to the lowest limb of a twisted oak and tried to make himself comfortable on the hard ground. But even though he was so tired he ached, sleep eluded him. Thoughts were crowding one upon the other in his head, and no matter how hard he tried to clear his mind, he could not chase them away. The letter from Cersei that he had destroyed at Riverrun had seemed desperate and gone beyond all reason. They had imprisoned her, so he had learned, and punished her, and his sweet sister had never taken punishment well. He wondered whether she would be changed by it all. 

A stony sorrow sank in his belly as he realised that it was not like to be the case. Cersei had never truly changed her entire life. It was he who had moulded himself to her, fitting around her, without her ever really making an effort in return. It was difficult not to be bitter about that. 

The stars were out by the time he finally drifted to a fitful sleep. He dreamed of cold blades and shouts in the night, of hempen ropes tightening and tightening, of choking screams burbling through blood and constricting nooses. “Jaime!” cried Brienne, her face at first pale, then blue, and as he rushed towards her, anguished, her face shifted to become Cersei’s, then vanished, leaving nothing but the oozing stump of a severed neck. 

He woke with a start, his breathing ragged, and realised he had been thumping the ground in his sleep with his stump. Even in the darkness he could tell that he had done himself some damage for the old ache was back. He wrapped his left hand around his wrist and massaged it gently, feeling the end of the bone shifting against the tissue. He lay on his back for the longest time, staring up at the night sky and feeling the sweat cooling on his hairline. 

Eventually, he drew out the dagger they had given him and stared at it. _Is this the dagger I will use to kill my sister?_ He pressed his thumb to its keen edge and watched with a kind of hopelessness as blood welled up. The blade had cut in with ease. _At least they have made certain to give me a worthy instrument._ He sucked the blood away, squeezing the cleaved skin together until the wound was staunched, then held the blade up. His blood still glistened on it. 

All his doubts resurfaced as he beheld it. Failure was not an option, he told himself, yet still he wondered what he would do if he could not do it, if he could not draw the blade across his sister’s throat and watch her life’s blood pour away. His father’s voice spoke to him them, across the years, and he recalled a lesson Lord Tywin had given him as a boy in the training yard when he had flinched from a task. _Are you afraid? You are a Lannister of the Rock and fear does not become you._

But he was afraid. He had killed any number of men on the battlefield without so much as a whimper of regret, but a woman was a different thing entirely, and when that woman was his sister, his twin sister, and his lover… His belly curdled with fear. He tilted the blade and watched the blood run slowly down to the hilt and over his fingers in a thin, red line. He wondered what his hand would look like after he’d done the deed. 

Blood and blood and blood and blood. 

Jaime closed his eyes and a sob broke over him like a crashing wave. 

***

Two days of imprisonment passed with Brienne being mostly ignored by the outlaws. They brought her food and water, but did not speak to her and so she was forced into sitting silently on the ground, alone with her worst thoughts. Sleep was the only thing that spared her from their poison though and so that was what she did, drifting in and out of slumber as often as she was able, trying not to count the passage of days. 

She was half-asleep when she heard the hiss. It sounded like a cat, or some kind of wild animal, but as she squinted into the half-darkness, she could see little of anything. 

The cave was quiet. Sometime earlier, Thoros of Myr and several of the outlaws had ridden off in a hurry, shouting about a column of Freys heading out from Riverrun, and since then, Brienne had not seen a soul. 

The hiss came again and this time, Brienne saw a shadow shift. She struggled to her feet, inwardly cursing the aches and pains peppering her body. “Who goes there?” she whispered as loudly as she dared. There was no answer, but then, from out of the darkness came a slinking figure, small and slight.

Podrick Payne gave her a nervous smile as he approached the screen that held her prisoner. “What are you doing back here?” she asked him, but he just shook his head and put his finger to his lips. Brienne understood and closed her mouth. A dagger glinted as he drew it from his belt and used it to slice open the lashings that kept the screen secured to the cave wall. He glanced around and then slid it to one side and stepped within. He unknotted the bindings at her wrists and ankles, then reached around him and pulled a longsword out from under his cloak. She started to ask him where he had been to become so armed, but he shook his head. 

He handed her the longsword and then stepped aside. “Thank you, Pod,” she told him. 

“My lady,” he said. 

And then she was out. The makeshift cell she’d been kept in was down one of the labyrinthine passageways. It was dark, save the occasional tallow candle glimmering from a hollow or ledge, but despite this she stuck close to the wall to try to keep from being seen, while Pod followed behind. As the passage widened out into the central cavern, she tightened her grip on her sword and readied herself. She expected to find outlaws there and to have to fight her way out, but was surprised to see not a soul. The firepit in the centre of the cave had burned low, but no-one had thought to throw more wood onto it. Everything was silent. Brienne glanced about in confusion. It seemed as if they were alone, yet for some reason, she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched. 

Her fingers twitched and she listened. Nothing. No sound except the dripping of water and the slow crackling of the fire. Or was it… footsteps and…? 

Brienne spun on the balls of her feet. 

From out of the darkness came the young Northman; his sword was drawn, and behind him, the thing that had once been Catelyn Stark stalked. Lady Stoneheart’s eyes glared redly at Brienne, and her breathing crackled in her chest. _It was that I heard,_ she thought, _not the sound of the fire._ She heard Podrick gasp behind her. 

“Put down your weapon,” ordered the Northman, yet his eyes flew over Brienne’s longsword and Pod’s drawn dagger and assessed the threat in an instant. Lady Stoneheart stood silent and still behind him. 

“Pod, stand back,” Brienne said. But the boy did not move. She repeated the instruction, and reluctantly, he did as he was bid. Stoneheart stepped back into the shadows too, leaving Brienne facing the Northman.

For a moment, they stared, facing one another, until she took a small step to the side. The Northman mirrored her, and then they were circling, slow steps taking them around and around. Brienne scoped out the cavern as she moved, shifting her grip on the longsword. She would have preferred Oathkeeper, and she had no idea how sharp this blade was, but any steel in her hand felt good. She knew she was going to have to fight her way out of this one. Her eyes flickered around the cave. There were several passageways leading off it, but all were dark and it was impossible to tell which one led to the outside – she hoped Podrick knew the way, or else they could find themselves walking into yet more trouble. 

She saw the sword coming at her half a heartbeat before she realised she had already blocked it. With a stinging crash, the blades connected again. Low, high, side, the Northman rained down blows on her. He was bold and strong, and Brienne was still sore from her injuries. She fought back as best she could, but every time she raised her arms to block a blow, her chest screamed with pain, and it was all she could do to keep her mind focused on the attack. The Northman pressed her backwards. With her left arm still bound and splinted, it was hard to keep her balance, and as she retreated, she tripped on the uneven ground. She sensed herself falling but with an immense effort, she recovered and then she was pushing him backwards in return. 

The swords clashed again and again. Sparks flew in the darkened cavern. Steel sang. But as soon as she thought she was gaining the upper hand, the Northman replied with a fearsome strike. With every blow she parried, she felt her arm growing heavier, her answering strikes weaker. _I cannot go on_ , she thought, breathless.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Podrick edging along the cavern wall, his dagger turned so it was hidden by his forearm. There was a look of singular intent upon his pale face and his tongue stuck out slightly from between his teeth. She afforded a heartbeat’s thought as to what he was doing before the Northman’s sword came crashing down on hers again and she cried out in frustration. Their swords clanged together and the sound was louder than a lightning strike. The Northman pivoted on his back foot and then came at her from a different angle, driving hard. His sword bit into the side of her chest. 

She heard herself scream, but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else, outside of her body. She sank to her knees, her eyes glazed over. Above her, the Northman grinned, his sword pointed at her throat, and Brienne blinked. Her breath was roaring in her chest, the pain with every motion almost unbearable. Slowly, her sword dipped. 

The scream came again, and this time she knew. It wasn’t her scream. In fact, it was hardly a scream at all. It was a strange sound, unearthly almost, and it echoed throughout the empty cavern. The Northman froze for just a moment, and turned. 

_This is my chance. I must…_ With the last ounce of her strength, Brienne forced herself to her feet and thrust forward. Her sword slipped through the Northman’s back with a sigh and he sank to the ground, crumpling away like a ragdoll drained of sawdust. The shock of it was enough to make her stop dead. She stared down at his body, lying face down on the rocky ground, and at the blood draining out of him in a murky red pool. 

But then the sound came again. She looked up and saw Pod standing over the woman in grey. _The Hangwoman,_ thought Brienne. _Lady Catelyn._

She was on her knees just as Brienne had been just a few moments earlier. The hood of her cloak had fallen back and her face was a terrible sight. Her mouth was open, wet strings of saliva snapping even as Brienne looked, and the dark red gouges on her cheeks all the more pronounced against a face rendered paler than moonstone. Her fingers were clasped tightly around something buried deep in her belly and as Brienne watched, she drew it slowly out of herself and held it up. 

It was Pod’s dagger and it was red with blood. 

“Pod!” 

The boy looked around at the sound of his name and then rushed to her side, grabbing at her arm. “M-m-my lady, you are hurt,” he stammered.

Brienne ignored him and pushed past to get to the figure on her knees. Lady Stoneheart’s eyes lifted from the dagger and stared at Brienne with a horrible loathing in them. The blood from her wound was soaking through her grey robes now, but the light in her eyes was still as strong. She raised her hand to her throat and pinched together the flaps of skin. “False friend,” she hissed. “Oathbreaker. Murderer.” 

Brienne stared. In her belly revulsion and horror twined. She remembered Lady Catelyn as she had once been – blue-eyed, tall and graceful, with hair like beaten copper and a face as beautiful as any highborn woman’s – and felt sickness roil. The figure before her was little more than corpse, yet those _eyes_ … the eyes were burning and burning and it was like they were a firestorm wanting to engulf her.

It took a moment, but Brienne realised that Stoneheart was struggling to her feet. The dagger was still in her hand, but now it was pointed at Brienne. Pod was beside her, unarmed now, and she could hear his rapid, nervous breathing. The cave wall was at their backs. With unexpectedly coordinated steps, Stoneheart started towards them.

“Murderer. Oathbreaker,” she cursed. 

_Choose_ , said a voice in Brienne’s head, and it sounded like Jaime. _Choose your life, and his, or your oath._ She looked down at the blade in her hand, and then up again at Stoneheart coming towards her. She thought of Jaime and the Mad King. And then she thrust her longsword into the belly of the creature that had once been Catelyn Stark…

A wet slide was the only sound. There was no scream, no hiss, nothing. The red eyes fixed on Brienne and the light in them guttered and faded. She drew back her sword and Lady Stoneheart sank away to the floor. 

For the longest moment, Brienne stood there, staring dully at the body before her, before she felt a timid hand touch her elbow and she turned to see Pod looking at her, his eyes pleading. She understood. But the eyes of her former lady were still open, and even despite what she had done, Brienne could not leave them so. With a grimace against the pain, she got down on her knees and passed her hand over them. They closed.

Catelyn Stark was at peace.

But Brienne of Tarth was now a murderer and an oathbreaker. 

***

It was the middle of the night. King’s Landing was a dark sprawling mass in front of him. High up Aegon’s Hill, he could see the Red Keep looming above the city, filled with the flickering yellow light of hundreds of candles and lamps. He reined up his horse and considered his course a moment. He had waited all afternoon behind a hedge in a field about a league from the city, wanting the cover of darkness to guarantee him unmolested passage. If he attempted to enter the castle during the day, he knew he would draw attention, particularly as he had been absent for several moons. He left the horse tied a distance from the Iron Gate and slipped past the lazing guards. 

The streets were quiet. Almost all the people were abed, although a few still walked about; he passed a drunken man singing a tuneless rendition of the Rains of Castamere, a tramp asleep in a doorway and, in the windows of a brothel, a pair of prostitutes beckoned to him. He ignored them all, keeping his hood raised and his eyes forward.

When he reached the gates of the castle and found them closed, he cursed. Now he would have to make a scene. With a sigh, he lowered his hood and approached the commanding guard. The man was leaning on his spear with an unfocused look upon his face, bored of his job, bored of his spear and bored of the world. A considerable effort straightened him upright. “Open the gates,” Jaime said firmly. 

The guard was about to resist, but then he looked beyond the dark cloak and the scrubby beard covering Jaime’s face and frowned. “My lord?” he questioned. “Lord Commander, you are returned. I… forgive me…” He turned to his fellows and hurriedly bid them to open the postern gate. 

Jaime was about to let loose with some sharp-tongued remark about duty being a bind to the bored, but he stopped himself. Every word spoken was another moment wasted. He slipped silently through the gate and continued on his way. Through the courtyards he went, keeping as quiet as he could. He could feel the empty vial of sweetsleep in his pocket, the wineskin already filled with Arbor Gold and tainted with its sedative stowed inside his cloak, and the dagger that was his only weapon hanging from his belt like something thrice the weight. 

At the doors to Maegor’s, the guards proved as little of a challenge as the ones at the Iron Gate. All looked at him, saw his face and allowed his entrance without question. As he climbed the steps to Cersei’s chambers, his belly seemed like it was churning fit to burst. If there had been any food in it, he would have thrown it up long ago. The door was closed and Jaime was quietly cheered to discover no Kingsguard standing outside the chambers, but instead two men-at-arms in Lannister livery. Both were shorter than Jaime by half a head; one was of an age with him, while the other was older by at least a dozen years. He thought briefly of how easy it would have been to cut through both of them had he still had his sword hand and a worthy blade. Now, cripple that he was, he would have to resort to more devious means. Their expressions were sleepy already, and by the time he had passed them his wineskin, they would be sleepier still.

He strode up to them, smiling, and greeted them. “Good evening, sers,” he said, although it was clear they were mere foot soldiers and not knights. _My sweet sister has found such trouble for herself that they do not consider her worthy of a knightly guard._ He felt a flash of sympathy for Cersei then – she would be appalled by the slight to her pride. The two guards looked up and as Jaime lowered his hood, their eyes widened. He almost laughed at the expression of shock on their faces. Clearly they were not expecting to see him. “It is fine work you are doing here. It pleases me to see men in Lannister colours outside my sister’s chambers.”

“My lord,” said the eldest of the two. “We were told you were in the Riverlands.”

“I was, but I have returned. And I would wish to speak with my sister.” 

The guard nodded. “I will announce you, my lord.”

“Oh, there is no need for that. Here, take my wineskin.” He unbuckled it from his belt and passed it to the guard. “There is little left, to be fair, but you men have been working hard, and I relieve you.” He angled his head toward the skin. “The vintage is an excellent one.”

The guard looked with uncertainty at the skin in his hand, then pulled the cork and raised it gamely to his lips. Jaime smiled as he took a small sip. _It is little better than swill_ , he thought, _but this one is too polite to say so._ The guard nodded his head. “Drink more. And then pass it to your friend, if you would. I wouldn’t wish for him to be deprived.”

Jaime watched as the mummers’ farce of manners played out in front of him, all the while thanking the gods that he was a reasonable actor, and an even better liar. When the second guard took the wineskin and tipped it back for a long gulp, he knew the wheels had begun to turn. He smiled at them both, then opened the door and slipped within. 

Cersei’s chambers were dark and warm. The window was open, the voile drapes pulled back, but no breeze was blowing and so the air was still. He did not move as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. His sister was abed; he could see her sleeping form beneath the sheets, lying on her back, her arms flung above her head. She had slept that way since they were children.

With silent steps he crept to her side. Her hair was gone, he realised with a start, shaved off and then regrown to little more than a half an inch of blonde stubble. Without her mane of golden curls, Cersei seemed quite exposed. Her lips were parted, and her long eyelashes were flickering slightly as she dreamed. _At least she dreams…_

He looked at her neck. The skin was thin, delicate, pale as pearl. He held up the dagger before him and stared down at his sister’s sleeping form, the Northman’s voice echoing in his head. _First you must bring back the head of the Queen. Only then will m’lady consider that you have kept your oath. Only then will she release the Maid of Tarth._ Jaime balked. Could he even do this? The blood… 

The blood.

A stone had lodged in his throat and he fought to swallow it. Slowly, he sheathed the dagger and took a step forwards. 

***

King’s Landing was not as Brienne remembered it, though it had been but a few moons since she had last stepped foot inside its walls. There was a heaviness about it, a blindness, as if everyone within had closed their eyes to what was happening all around them. It was growing light as she slipped through the Iron Gate, shadowing alongside a pair of wayns filled with turnips, potatoes and cabbages. When the carters stopped their mules to pay the market tolls, Brienne ducked between them and started up Aegon’s Hill. 

She was tired from near endless riding, and still aching from the wounds she carried. The blow the Northman had given her had bounced off a rib and made little more than a superficial wound, but her arm was too painful for words. She couldn’t stop though. The sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon, and dawn would soon be upon them. 

At the Barbican of the Red Keep, the gates were closed and for a moment she panicked. The guards standing there regarded her with doubt. One of them asked, “What is your business, milady?”

“My name is Brienne of Tarth and I bring vital news for Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. He has bid me to seek him out.”

“Ser Jaime?” the man questioned. “He arrived back this very night, looking rather dishevelled. What is it you wish of him?”

“I have a message for him.”

The guard thought that over, then replied, “Give it to me then, and I will give it to him.”

“No,” said Brienne. “It is a personal message that can be seen by no-one but the Lord Commander.” 

Her stubbornness paid off. The guard grumbled, but opened the postern gate and Brienne darted through. The drawbridge between the outdoor courtyard and the inner one had been lowered as the castle was already beginning to stir, and Brienne slipped easily through. She walked as fast as she dared up the Serpentine Steps. A group of handmaidens were entering Maegor’s Holdfast and she followed them in and began to search. 

She went up staircases and along hallways until finally she came to a narrow, twisting stair that turned inside one of the tower’s turrets. Two men in Lannister livery lay asleep before the closed door to a bedchamber, and from the hand of one of them, a wineskin had been dropped to glug its final dregs out onto the stone floor. The wine had soaked away, leaving nothing but an already drying stain. She stepped over their bodies and put a hand to the heavy oak and bronze door they had been guarding. It opened slowly. 

The room within was still and silent as the grave, the gathering light filtering through voile drapes that hung still open at the window. It was the room of a highborn lady – flowers in a colourful ceramic jug stood on the dressing table, a glorious gown beaded with seed pearls hung from a hook on the wall, and there, amid the white sheets of a large bed, sat Jaime, cradling something in his lap. 

“Jaime?” she whispered. 

He looked up at her voice and a frown grew on his brow. A series of deep scratches, red and angry claw marks, marred his cheeks and neck and forearms. 

He looked down once again at his lap. “I am dreaming,” he muttered to himself. 

Brienne came closer. This time, Jaime did not look up. He made no move to rise either, and instead his hand vaguely touched whatever it was he was holding. It was concealed by the sheets and pillows piled around him. “I am dreaming,” he said again. His hand passed over the sheets again and this time the motion shifted them slightly and Brienne saw…

A face that looked remarkably like Jaime’s peeked through the mess of twisted sheets, a grimace etched upon it. Brienne gasped. She went to him and pulled back the sheets still further. A neck whiter than bone was revealed, with reddish imprints circling it. Unseeing green eyes stared up at her. It was the Queen, and she was dead. 

But there was no blood, Brienne realised, even though a dagger lay on the sheets beside Jaime. There were no tears, either, no aggressive display of grief such as she had imagined she might see from this man. There was nothing except a kind of deepening shock.

“Gods be good… Jaime…” she murmured. “You…” She couldn’t say the words. _You killed her_ , she thought. _You did it. You kept your oath._

He had taken off his golden hand, she realised, and he was rubbing his stump now, staring off into the distance somewhere behind Brienne’s head. “She always said that when we were born, I was holding on to her foot with my right hand.” He looked down at the Queen’s body in his lap and picked up one of her hands. In death, it was claw-like. His fingers traced the bones of it lovingly, gently, smoothing out the rigour as much as possible. “But I have no right hand anymore.” 

Brienne did not know what to say to that. 

His eyes drifted into focus then and fixed onto Brienne. “These are hangman’s hands,” he said, holding up his hand and his stump and staring at them with a kind of bitterness. He shook his head. “I tried to tell her that I had loved her, but the words stuck in my throat and I could not.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “But I did. I loved her.” 

A noise came from outside the window and Brienne startled. She turned and looked, but there was nothing to see. “Jaime, we must go,” she told him, panic beginning to grip her. If they were seen like this, with the Queen dead in his arms, both of them would be like to lose their heads. “The Gods have seen fit to spare us both, but that will not be the case if we are discovered here like this. We have to get out of here. We have to run.”

He frowned up at her. “No…”

“If they find you they will kill you.”

“Mayhaps that is what I deserve.”

Brienne knelt on the edge of the bed and took his face in her hands, looking him in the eyes. His expression was hollow, drained of all emotion. “You know that is not true,” she said. “You have kept your oath.” 

“My oath,” he repeatedly numbly. He looked up at her and, as if seeing her for the first time, added, “And you are alive.” He glanced down at her side, and saw the blood soaking through the bandage wrapped around her chest. “But wounded once again.” 

“It is a story I must needs tell you, but not here.” She sighed, looking away, the thought still paining her even now. “You kept your oath, ser, but I broke mine.” 

Jaime frowned. “Your oath?”

“To Lady Catelyn. I killed her, Jaime,” Brienne confessed. “I slew the woman I swore my allegiance to.”

“My lady…” His voice was heavy with compassion and Brienne almost laughed. The idea that the man who had called her wench and been cruel beyond words when first she had met him could possibly feel compassion for her was almost incomprehensible. She closed her eyes and swallowed. 

“It was necessary,” she said. 

“Yes,” said Jaime bleakly. He looked down at the body still held in his lap. “It was necessary.” 

It was a sorry thing, and little comfort in the end, but it was the truth of it, and it explained both of their actions. 

He smoothed his hand along his sister’s cheekbone, then climbed slowly from the bed. For a long moment, he stood there, staring down at her, half-hidden beneath the sheets, and then he bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead, then her cheek, and finally onto the pink arch of her lips. He scooped up the dagger he had been given, sheathed it in his belt and turned back to Brienne. “Let us go.” 

She nodded. Through the window, dawn was breaking, and a shaft of new sunlight shifted into the room as Jaime opened the door and they slipped away. 

***

They were not in the castle to hear the hue and cry Jaime imagined must have gone up when the body was discovered. Instead, they were just off the Street of Steel in a quiet inn nestled between a second-rate farrier and a cobbler’s shop. Jaime’s hands curled around a mug of dark brown ale and he stared at his distorted reflection in the surface of the liquid. Opposite him, Brienne sat in a mirror image, only her fingers were curled tighter than his. They had shared their stories and now they were silent, as the weight of their words sank in to both of them. 

“So it seems that we are Oathbreaker and Oathkeeper,” Jaime told her, “but not the way anyone would have thought.” 

At that, Brienne smiled at him. A weak smile, but a smile nonetheless. He reached out across the table and took her hand in his. Brienne started and tried to withdraw, but he held on and stopped her, and after a beat, she relented. Slowly, he turned it over and looked at the gnarls and scars, the bruises and callouses. It was everything Cersei’s hand had not been. But yet somehow there was something about it that compelled him. Something that kept him from letting her go. He frowned at that thought and then wondered why it was troubling him. 

No-one had ever done for him what this woman had done for him. 

They remained at their table while the sun rose and tracked across the sky, neither of them moving. The inn keep refilled their mugs and brought them smoked ham, pickled eggs and a cob of rye bread at midday, but other than that, they were left alone. It would not be that way for long, but after what they had both done, he thought it was what they needed. 

He thought she would break before the day was done, yet it was after the sun had set when he finally caught her stifling a yawn. “You should get some rest,” he said as she rubbed her eyes – _those astonishing eyes_ – and adjusted her position. She opened her mouth to deny it, but he spoke over her. “And so should I.” He looked at her, not smiling or teasing and added, “Come with me?” 

The look on her face reminded him of all the times he’d thought her lacking in wits and this time he couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t look like that.” He stood and held out his hand. “You’ve been thinking of it too, I know.” 

She said nothing, but as he stood there, slowly she got to her feet and took his hand. “There,” he said as his fingers closed around hers. 

He led the way up the winding, narrow stairs to the inn’s rooms and pushed open the door of one of them, standing back to allow her to enter. For a moment, Brienne stood on the threshold, staring within like she was expecting a horde of enemy soldiers to come at her from behind the scant furniture, but then she stepped inside and turned to him. He barely had chance to close the door before she threw herself into his arms. It was more an embrace than anything else, but there was something arousing about her awkwardness and he felt himself growing hard right there. He pulled her back slowly, unpeeling her from him, held her face and kissed her. 

She was unyielding at first, but as he moved his lips, so she seemed to understand and in a few movements, she had adapted. _Just like she does with a foe_ , he thought as his hand and his stump pushed through her short, overgrown hair. It felt strange and unfamiliar, but he did not mislike it as he had once thought he would. He used his lips to open her mouth and let his tongue slip between her teeth. She gave a surprised squeak and Jaime smiled against her mouth. Remembering her injured chest, he kept his hands away from her wound and her splinted arm. 

They stood there kissing for a long time, until Jaime could bear it no longer. His cock was straining against his breeches and aching. He palmed it roughly to try to relieve himself, but she caught him doing it and stepped backwards, her mouth open in shock. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips red and wet, her hair falling in front of her eyes, and Jaime stopped in his tracks. _There is a kind of beauty about her_ , he thought. “I know what you’re thinking, my lady,” he said softly. “I promise you I won’t have your maidenhead.” 

She looked up at him, searching his face to judge if he was speaking truly. “Jaime, I…” she began, but then her words failed her. Stiffly, uncertainly, she reached down and her fingers worked at the laces of his breeches. Jaime almost pushed her away, but as he set his hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him and shook her head almost imperceptibly. His cock sprang free, and he actually gasped as she took him in her hands with a touch so delicate it was at first hard to believe it was her. 

Jaime wondered briefly if she would need him to tell her what to do, but suddenly he felt her take him in her mouth and realised that no… oh… she would not. His eyes rolled back into his head and he swayed at the sensation. Did her septa teach her this? He doubted it. He began to wonder where she had learned such a thing, but then coherent thought vanished as her tongue massaged him in a gentle, hesitant rhythm. He tried his best not to thrust forwards, even though every muscle in his body was crying out for it, and finally, when he felt himself pulsing, he pulled back sharply, jerked his hand along himself for half a dozen short strokes and then caught his spurting seed with the sleeve of his tunic. 

When he looked back at her again, she was still on her knees, staring at him, but her eyes were dark and he took her hand and raised her up, led her to the bed and then pushed her gently down onto the edge. “Go on, lie back,” he told her gently. 

She did as she was bid, then he slid alongside her, his good hand working at her clothing awkwardly. Her own hands came down to help him and soon she was naked. His eyes slipped over her. She was all hard lines and muscles, with barely a curve to be seen, but her skin was endearingly freckled even below her neck and covered with the softest down. He trailed his hand over her belly and then he pushed his fingers into her sex. She tensed a moment, but he stayed still, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “Shh…” he told her. 

And then she relaxed, and he began to stroke her. Her eyes didn’t leave his, even when he felt her come and heard the tiny sound of surprise as she did.

He kissed her again, then laid himself beside her, his left hand reaching for hers as her breathing slowed once again. Out of the window, it was a dark and cloudless night and in the sky, he could see a hundred thousand stars glittering above them.

For the longest time she said nothing at all, and he was drifting to sleep when he heard her voice whisper, “Thank you, Jaime.” 

He smiled at the ceiling, thinking of all the words they had called one another that were not their names, and squeezed her hand. “And the same to you… Brienne.”

 

The End.


End file.
